The capital district will have 36 candidates in the fray from its two constituencies of Thiruvananthapuram and Attingal for the April 10 Lok Sabha elections. On Wednesday, the last day for withdrawal of nominations, six candidates decided to step aside while the nominations of two dummy candidates were rejected earlier. This whittled down the number of candidates who had submitted nominations from 44 to 36. Twenty are contesting in the Thiruvananthapuram constituency.
The day also saw the nominations of the United Democratic Front’s candidate in Attingal, Bindu Krishna, being accepted along with that of A. Sampath, an Independent candidate, also from Attingal. The initial scrutiny of Ms. Krishna’s nomination on March 24 saw rival parties alleging anomalies in the declaration of income tax details and assets, following which the process was postponed to the next day. However, the second scrutiny saw rival parties raising another point, this time accusing Ms. Krishna of trying to include a new affidavit into the already submitted set of nominations. This affidavit, they said, did not have the serial number and volume number of the notary.
However, District Collector and District Election Officer Biju Prabhakar on Wednesday said the complaints raised were only technical in nature and that a notary had been summoned to examine his registry. The probe had found that it was only a clerical error, which could be pardoned as per election rules, and it was proved beyond doubt that there were no anomalies that called for rejection of the nomination, he said, explaining how her nomination was accepted.
With this, Ms. Krishna will be in the fray for Attingal with 15 others, including Girija Kumari of the BJP, A. Sampath of the CPI (M), Anil Kumar N.S. of the BSP, Vakkom G. Ajith of the Shiv Sena, Chirayinkeezhu Gopinathan of the Republican Party of India (A), M.R. Sarin of the JDU, Priya Sunil of Welfare Party and M.K. Manoj Kumar of the SDPI.
In Thiruvananthapuram, the candidates include Shashi Tharoor of the Congress, Bennet Abraham of the CPI, O. Rajagopal of the BJP, Ajit Joy of the AAP and 16 others, including nine Independents.
Meanwhile, a training programme on poll expenditure will be held from 5 p.m. on Thursday at the Collectorate here, in which candidates or their main agents have to be present compulsorily. A review of the poll expenditure of each candidate will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on March 29 and 30 at the PWD Rest House, Thycaud, according to an official release.
